The Final Arrangement (12 page)

“Mother, I don’t have time to argue the virtues or lack thereof of the son of a bitch my sister has gotten herself involved with.  And beer drinking is not a sin.”

“Oh, Quincy.  What am I going to do with you?” 

“Think of the Word of Wisdom as more of a guideline.  And besides, even though I am an adult, I hope it will offer you just a little consolation to know that I didn’t order a beer myself.  But you never know.  Your spies can’t be everywhere all of the time.  Maybe there’s a six-pack of cold ones sitting in my fridge right now.  In fact, go ahead and make that appointment with the Bishop, I’ll bring some refreshments along.”

“You’re teasing me now aren’t you?  You’re terrible.”

“I’ve got to go, Mom; I’ve got an important customer arriving any minute.  Goodbye.”

“But Quinc…” I hung up before she could continue.  The man would be here any minute and I needed to get that arrangement finished before then.

I was relieved to find that Cindy had prepped things like I had asked and I went to work, slicing furiously.  My body was on autopilot, I didn’t notice each individual cut made to the stems of salal and trachelium.  I formed the base of the arrangement with greenery, which was my usual habit.  I often found myself using designing time for deep thinking.

I couldn’t stop dwelling on the fact that my mother had always favored Allie over Sandy or me.  A rose snapped when I shoved it into the vase and realized I wasn’t heeding the advice of my Aunt Rosie who told me never to project my negativity into the flowers as I arranged them.  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about my sister.

What are you doing Allie?
  My heart ached to hear of my sister being so foolish.  After what she’d been through already with him, and after what we had talked about, how could she stay with Brad?

“Ow!”  I felt a familiar hot burning in the fleshy part of my left thumb.  I dropped the knife and saw blood running from the tip of the thumb down to the first knuckle.  Just as I had thought of that creep’s name I had sliced a digit instead of a flower stem with the serrated edge of the knife.  I had cut myself many times before; it’s just a regular part of the job.  But the blood pumped out of the gash where the skin had been filleted open.  The pain throbbed with my pulse.  This was gonna leave a mark. 

Cindy came over when she heard my exclamation.  “Lemme see.”  She grabbed my hand and examined the damage.  “Eww gross.  That looks bad.  You’re gonna need stitches.”

“Stitches?  I don’t have time for stitches.  If you’re going to be a florist, Cindy, you’ve got to get used to this happening once in a while.”  I showed her a little florist’s first aid by cleaning the wound at the sink, and then slapping some wadded toilet paper on it and wrapping it up with pot tape.  Adhesive bandages don’t stay on a cut like that while you’re trying to work.  Pot tape is made to secure wet floral foam to a container, so it’s water proof and very sticky.  It worked perfectly.

The bouquet looked spectacular when I finished.  I did a double check to make sure the blood from my cut didn’t leak onto any of the flowers, stems or leaves.  The customer who had ordered it arrived just minutes later.  He loved it and complimented ebulliently.  I’ll never get tired of that type of customer. 

###

I needed a few things from the bucket truck that comes to my shop every afternoon.  Keith Tanner, the owner of Daily Fresh Floral Delivery and driver of the truck had been coming to the shop every day since before I took over.  Every shop owner in northern Utah knows that if you want to get any information about the industry, you ask Keith. 

If anyone knew anything about the goings on in the funeral flower business and Derrick Gibbons, it would be Keith.  He pulled up in his heavy-duty cargo van at the usual time.  I walked outside to meet him as he got out of the van.  I didn’t want Cindy to overhear my inquiries on the subject of Derrick. 

Keith should be the pin-up model for the all-around good guy.  When times are slow, he extends a little credit with the promise of payment later and he doesn’t hold it against you when it’s just plain slow and you don’t want to buy any flowers that day.

I approached the driver’s side as he stepped out, then we enDerrickd in the strict parliamentary procedure, which must be followed when a transaction of industry gossip is being proposed.

“Hi, how’s it going today?” I asked.  Pleasantries are the first step in the unwritten rules of decorum.    

“Oh it’s kind of slow but things seem to picking up a little bit.”

“I don’t have any special orders today, but I do need a few every-day things.” Now, according to the dance, he would open the back doors and pull out the tray he had custom built to hold buckets of flowers. 

“So I’m sure you heard about Derrick.” Keith said. 

“Yeah, I heard.  It’s awful.  I feel so bad for his family.”  That much was true.  “Did you ever do much business with him?” I asked, innocently.

“I did a fair amount of sales with him.  I talked to his designer this morning.  Until further notice, she’s gonna keep the shop going.  She asked me to come up there today.”

“Really?  I'm surprised.  But, I suppose the Hansen mortuaries in the other cities still have services to take care of.  That’s the only reason I can think of that they would need flowers.  Derrick couldn’t have had very much walk-in traffic in that hole-in-the-wall shop.”

“I’ve never seen them sell a vased arrangement out of there.”  Keith said.  “In fact, all I’ve ever seen there are funeral flowers; mostly casket sprays.”

“What I don’t understand is why everyone is buying from them.  The arrangements are ugly and overpriced.” I said.

“Well you didn’t hear this from me,” this is an obligatory phrase in the gossip exchange, “but Derrick used to talk about his business partner a lot.  He never said his last name just Doug.”  Keith informed.  “I wonder if the partner was the marketing guy for the business.”

BOOM!

A blast that seemed to suck the air out of the atmosphere rippled through my body.  I reached out and wrapped my fingers around Keith’s forearm in a death grip, while he ducked down like a foot soldier in a foxhole.

We looked up at each other, eyes big as dinner plates. 

“Holy shit, what was that?” I said.

“It sounded like a shotgun.” Keith said.

We paused; remaining crouched for a few seconds, and then looked around. 

“Maybe it was a car back-firing,” said Keith, as we rose slowly.  There is a busy street on the North side of the building, but I wondered if a car could have produced the percussion I felt ripple through me from that far away. 

I laughed, “Wow, that was intense.  I’m glad it doesn’t happen every time you come around.  We might have to change our business arrangement.”  

BOOM!

A shriek escaped me; Keith exclaimed some kind of oath.  I don’t remember what he said; the feeling of my heart bursting from the sudden shock served as a bit of a distraction. 

“Let’s get outta here!” he yelled.

We both tried to run while crouching down and covering our heads with our hands.  We were two chickens flapping our wings up around our beaks as we ran toward the building.

We ran all the way to the design room in the middle of the store before we stopped.  We both breathed as if we’d run the 100-meter dash. 

“Someone was shooting at us!” I exclaimed.  “There is no way that two cars back-fired in a row out there!  Who would be shooting—why would anyone shoot at us?”  I looked at Keith in disbelief.

“Okay—” he breathed for a few beats “lets—just—listen for—a few minutes,” he said between breaths.

We paused in silence.  Nothing happened.  Not a sound. 

“Should I call the police?”  I asked.

“Yes!”

The thought of having to call the police again caused a new, different type of anxiety.  Despite, and in addition to, all the mental and physical discomfort caused by the knowledge that someone had been shooting at me, I felt something in my chest drop and travel down my esophagus into my stomach. 

I called 911 this time.  Being shot at seemed like enough of an emergency to use the service.  I used the portable phone and stayed on line with the operator while Keith and I made our way to the rear door.  We stood on either side of the clear glass in the top third of the door, taking turns peeking outside to see if anything was happening out there.  I peeked and could just make out the nose of a navy and white cruiser as it pulled up. 

“It looks like the police are here,” I said to the operator and then hung up with her permission.

Alex had arrived within minutes.  Of course it had to be Alex Cooper.  Didn’t they have any other cops in this city? 

“What’s going on?” 

I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Cindy stood a foot behind me.  I don’t know where she was during the melee.  I felt a little guilty for not searching her out when we ran in.  Keith regarded Cindy with a murderous glare.

“I’ll explain later Cindy.  Go to the front of the store, lock the door and wait up there in a safe place until I tell you to come out.”

She looked at me like I was deranged then shrugged her shoulders and returned to the front of the store.

I returned to my post with Keith.  We watched as Alex approached the back door nonchalantly.  I opened the door for him.  “Now someone is shooting at us!”  I said as he passed the threshold.

“Hello, Miss McKay.” His appellation was delivered with frost.

He turned to Keith and asked him to recount what had happened. 

After Keith finished his version, Alex turned to me and said, “There’s something you need to see outside.” The corner of his mouth turned up and betrayed the serious cop exterior he was trying to maintain.

“I don’t want to go back out there.”

“Well I know you don’t want a big, overbearing man to tell you what to do, but as the only member of the police force in the room, I’m going to have to require you to come outside.”

I glared at Alex and extended my palm indicating he could lead the way.  I looked over at Keith.

“I guess you two know each other.”  Keith said.

“Unfortunately we’ve met a few too many times lately.”  The tone in my voice must have told Keith he didn’t want to ask any more.

We followed Alex as he practically skipped over to Keith’s van. 

“So you were both standing here behind the van like this, right?”  He mimicked looking over the flowers and pointed to a particular bunch of celosia and mimed being overwhelmed by its beauty.  He placed one hand over his heart and looked skyward.

“Cute.” I said.

“Now if you’ll just follow me I will show both of you the perpetrator of this horrific crime.”

Alex walked around the opened doors of Keith’s van and led us to my van, which Nick had parked earlier before he left for the day.

“Oh man,” Keith muttered as we approached.

The van looked funny.  Not funny comical, funny odd.  After a long perusal, I realized the passenger side of the van rested lower than the other side.  My van was lopsided because both of the tires on the passenger side were completely flat. 

“Here’s your sniper,” Alex said as he tried and failed to suppress the gleeful “I told you so,” that I’m sure rested on the tip of his tongue. 

“Oh geez,” Keith said.  “I don’t believe this.  I almost had a coronary because of a blown-out tire?”  

“Two blown out tires,” Alex reminded as he held up two fingers like a peace sign. 

“What are the chances of two tires blowing out within a minute of each other?”  Keith wondered out loud. 

“I’ve never heard of it happening before,” Alex said.  “Who was the last person to drive the van, Quincy?  It wouldn’t have been—Nick would it?”

“Nick!” I yelled.  “That little jerk!  What did he do to my van?” 

“Well, I’m not going to be any help here, and I’m way behind on the route.  Do you mind if I go, Quincy?”  Keith asked.

“I’m so sorry, Keith.  This is embarrassing.” 

“Don’t worry about it.  How could you ever know that both of your tires would explode?  Why don’t you grab the bunches you need, and just write them down, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow to write up the ticket.”

“You’re the best.”  I hustled over to his van and grabbed some sunflowers, solidago, purple monte, Kermit poms and the beautiful celosia by which Alex had pretended to be so smitten.

Alex offered to help me with the flowers as Keith drove away. 

“No thank you, Officer.  I’d hate to keep you from your appointed rounds.”

“I think that’s the postman you’re talking about.”

“Whatever.  The flowers aren’t heavy.  I do this every day.”

I turned to go back into the shop; Alex walked ahead of me and opened the door.

“Thank you, Officer Cooper, but I could have opened the door even without a man’s help.”

“Oh give it a rest, Quincy.”  He furrowed his brow and waived me past, into the back workroom.

I turned to face him.  “Thank you for coming here and doing your job by responding to a call.  I appreciate it.  I wish you could appreciate how embarrassing this is, and stop prolonging the moment by being here.”

He took the bunch of flowers from my arms.  “I like being here.  You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.  How could you know that both of your tires had exploded?  That never happens to—anyone.  Well, anyone besides you that is.”

“Exactly.”  I don’t know what’s going on lately, but right now it feels like I’m a magnet for strange disasters.  I had nothing to do with Derrick’s murder, and yet ever since they found him, bizarre things have been happening to me.  I groped a corpse the other day for crying out loud.”

Alex looked at me and cringed.  “I don’t even want to ask—but, aren’t there any living bodies you would rather be groping?  I believe corpse groping is an actual, serious medical disorder.  I think they’ve got a name for it.”

“It was a brief encounter.  And it wasn’t intentional, but that’s not the point.  It’s just that I was barely starting to feel like I was in charge of my life when all of this weird stuff started happening."

“It’s really important for you to feel in charge isn’t it?”